Investigations of the Detonation Properties of Condensed Explosives with Equations of State Based on Intermolecular Potentials. I. RDX with Fixed Product Composition

An attempt is made to determine an average pair potential of intermolecular force for the mixture of product gases of the condensed explosive RDX (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine) from measurements of the detonation velocity. The principal approximations are that the products of detonation consist of CO, H2O, and N2 in equimolar proportions and that the equation of state for this mixture can be calculated from theories of the free-volume type with the use of an average intermolecular potential. It was found that the average intermolecular potential was fairly well determined at distances somewhat less than the crossover distance. This result was almost independent of the choice of equation of state, although the calculated values of detonation temperature and pressure were not.